


Inheritance

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 08:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer after TSBBS, discovery of startling information about Blair's family history brings Blair and Jim even closer together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inheritance

## Inheritance

by Mazal HaMidbar

Jim, Blair, Naomi, Simon, Daryl and Megan are borrowed; Gertrud, Nathan and other original characters-to-come are not.

As ever, SpykeRaven and WildBill have been my cheerleaders, encouraging me to work on longer fanfic pieces. Any errors within, however, are mine alone.

Important note: This story, "Inheritance," is just the first chapter of my novel-in-progress called "Breadcrumbs." I would appreciate any feedback, especially notification if I've inadvertently violated any canonical information about Jim and Blair's pasts.

* * *

The small, rectangular package arrived in the mail one otherwise ordinary Friday, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with string, addressed in Naomi Sandburg's familiar scrawl, a large, loopy, schoolgirl hand that belied her 55 years. The U.S. Postal Service had banned string on packages years ago, but, of course, inconvenient government regulations could never stop Naomi. 

Mail came faithfully at noon every day, and, because her son, Blair Sandburg, was in between jobs, his daily habit was to snatch the contents out of the mailbox as soon as they touched down. Sometimes, even though he knew better, he looked out the window of the apartment half a dozen times a morning in anticipation. A voracious reader since kindergarten, he had long since devoured every book, magazine and newspaper in the third-story, cathedral-ceilinged flat that he had shared with Jim Ellison for three years and counting. He knew how pathetic it was that mail call could be a highlight in his day. 

He went down the staircase grateful for the rare blue sky of the early summer day; even after 14 years in Cascade, he had never truly accustomed himself to the typical clouds, drizzle and chill of the American Northwest. Following longtime habit, he tossed the bills, grocery store mailers and various solicitations from credit card companies and charities into the wicker basket by the door, along with his keys. As the apartment's longtime owner and Blair's senior by 11 years, it had always fallen to Jim to deal with these mundane householder details. 

Blair settled his compact form onto the comfortable couch opposite the not-needed-today fireplace near the sliding-glass door and large balcony, settled his wire-rimmed reading glasses on his short, straight nose before his dark blue eyes, and slowly, carefully tugged off the string. He decided after a few seconds to use it to tie back his thick, dark, shoulder-length curls. He knew he wouldn't have a chance to do that anymore in another three months; despite his protestations to colleagues at the police department, his distinctive locks would be gone as soon as he started the police academy in September. 

It would be the end of what Naomi liked to describe as his Sixties look; even the two tiny trademark silver hoops in his left earlobe would likely fall at least temporary victim to what she had used to call -before she had gotten to know Jim, Simon and the others at the Major Crimes Division -"the pigs." Luckily for her son, Naomi's Sixties experiences had restricted themselves to a lifelong interest in peace activism, meditation, candles and incense, avoiding any significant drug use. In some ways, she was still the good Jewish girl her mother had presumably hoped she would be. 

Well, Naomi, he thought - calling his mother by her first name, even to her face, was a vestige of that same Sixties upbringing - I'm 30 now, born at the tail-end of the Sixties, for that matter, and if there was ever a time for me to choose my own destiny and live my own life, that time is now. The new millennium is upon us, I've left my old career and burned that bridge real crispy, thanks to you, and my life is going to be what I decide to make of it. 

Which, he hoped, was going to end up differently than that of his peripatetic mother, who continued to do more traveling - Blair had never figured out how she afforded it - than even the most obsessive travel agent. Technically based in Cascade, where she had arrived not long after he had begun studies at Rainier University at the age of 16, she continued to visit New Age hot spots around the globe. She always seemed to be going off to or just coming back from Sedona., Machu Picchu, Egypt, India, Ireland, even Nagano, Japan, after the Winter Olympics had made that the next must-see place for the mystical convergence crowd. 

Blair, for his part, was willing to travel anywhere on the globe - no matter how hot, cold, desolate or stinky - but only if there was good reason, such as going back into the jungles of Peru with Jim to rescue Simon and Daryl nearly three years ago. 

And, Naomi - in middle age still a tall, slim, stunning redhead - had dated dozens of men, but never, to his knowledge, lived for any length of time with anyone, apparently not even Blair's father, who identity she had kept a steadfast secret her son's entire life. 

Why, you were an immaculate conception, created without sin, just like Mary and Jesus, she would tell him when he would inquire, with a breezy attitude that emulated humor. 

But, Naomi, you're no virgin, and maybe you never have been, he would fling right back at her, with only a slight smile. 

And that bantering exchange is how they would leave it. 

That is, until the last time he had asked, about two years ago. He was already working with Jim, the key subject of his dissertation - the document that, thanks to Naomi, would become the turning point of his life though not in the way he had hoped - and he figured he had finally earned the right to know about his paternity. 

No, she had told him, her expression strangely blank, her tone oddly somber, her volume just above a whisper. No, I'm not. No, I haven't been for a long time. But every Jewish boy or girl is a sacred child of God. He's the only father you should need. 

Maybe I need more than that, he had said, swiftly growing angry, an emotion that Blair, with his sunny, energetic personality, didn't give in to very often. 

Maybe there isn't any more than that. Maybe we don't always get what we need, she said, coming close to the tears that were as uncharacteristic for her as rage was to Blair. Maybe, whatever we have just has to be enough. Please don't ask me anymore. 

And, a bit frightened at her unexpected reaction, he never did. 

Naomi must have also been rattled by the conversation, because they didn't speak thereafter for six months, likely a record, until, typically Naomi-like, she suddenly bounced back into his life. 

In the two years since then he had quietly come to accept - and had desperately hoped she somehow would too - that he had different ways. After all, he had been at the University for a ridiculously long time, 14 years straight, taking his bachelor's and master's, and he would have had his doctorate by now except ... except that security and stability had also meant three years with Jim, and .the only way to preserve that relationship had been to repudiate his dissertation as fictitious and declare himself an academic fraud. 

Luckily, everyone in Major Crimes had understood at one level or another that he had done it mostly to save Jim's stellar law-enforcement career. As private a man as Blair was extroverted, Jim couldn't withstand the attention that the inadvertent publicity about his Sentinel abilities was bringing. Jim's extraordinarily sensitive sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell were natural if not supernatural gifts that made him unique in Cascade, if not the state or the country or the world, and he used those Sentinel abilities just as ancient tribal watchmen did, to protect the public. Blair's draft paper had retained Jim's real name, an innocent oversight that became disastrous when Naomi in her misguided helpfulness had sent the document to a New York book publisher. Had Blair accepted the printing deal aggressively thrust at him, it would have ensured him financial fortune and critical acclaim - but at an emotional cost he had been unwilling to pay. 

Hence, being bounced unceremoniously out of the university in disgrace and losing all his stipends and grants. Hence, losing his unpaid observer status as Jim's unofficial partner, always at his side ostensibly to study him and secretly to guide him, during which time they had saved each other, and others, dozens of times. Hence, now looking at losing his trademark style, likely for good unless he really were to be assigned to Narcotics instead of becoming Jim's official partner. Since his arrival, that had been the perennial joke around the police department; in truth, Blair was so nave about drugs that he hadn't realized he was living next to a meth lab until it blew up and, seeking shelter from the man who had already become his best friend, had talked his way into the tiny bedroom underneath the stairs. 

He had been there for three years already. Given all that had occurred in recent weeks, Blair cherished that last little bit of status quo even more now. 

"So, all in all, not really looking for anything else to rock my world," he said softly to himself as he gently tore the brown wrapping, with its return address the small house in the small Southern California town of Elyon., his onetime boyhood home, off the package in his lap. 

He was still on the sofa that evening when Jim came home after a long day at the PD, but by now he was lying on his stomach, shoes off , wearing his favorite Argyle socks, staring at his laptop computer. He was surrounded by books, maps, papers and a collection of pencils, most of which he had managed to chew the erasers off of, either previously or recently. Deep in concentration, as was his habit when fascinated by his subject, he appeared not to even hear the front door open. 

Tossing his keys into the basket by the front door, Jim strode over and tousled the unruly curls, which had long since slipped the bonds of the flimsy piece of white string. 

"Looks just like you, Chief," he said, using his perennial nickname for Blair. "I guess you can take the boy out of the university, but I guess you can't take the university out of the boy." 

"Let's not go there, man," Blair replied without even looking up, and Jim automatically leaned away, immediately regretting bringing up what was, despite all the right and inevitable reasons for it, likely to remain a sore subject for a while. 

"Not going to. No problem. I just didn't think you were going to get started so early on the 'what I did on my summer vacation' essay. The academy won't require it, you know." 

An inadvertent frown settled over his large, handsome features as he settled his long, rangy body on the portion of the couch not occupied by Blair and his project. Out of habit, he swept his left hand over his thinning, light-brown hair and squinted his light blue eyes as his tried to figure out Blair's latest fixation. As he puzzled it over, his right hand, seemingly of its own accord, reached over and squeezed the closest part of Blair's anatomy, which happened to be his left ankle. 

Blair didn't respond to either the humorous words or to the affectionate gesture, just continued to stare at the blinking computer screen. 

After a couple of minutes of silence, Jim said, "OK, Junior, now you're really starting to worry me. In fact, I think you're setting a lifetime record for keeping your mouth shut. What is it that you're - literally - not telling me?" 

At that, Blair switched the laptop into sleep mode, swung his legs down to the hardwood floor, sat up and took off his glasses, setting them carefully onto the coffee table. 

"Jim," he started, looking serious. "Do you know where you came from?" 

"You know, I thought I had just asked you a question, and, interestingly enough, I was looking for an answer, not another question. Oh, I get it. We're doing that old joke. 'Why do Jews always answer questions with questions? Why not?' Gotta say, though, I was really looking for something a little more informative here." 

"Well, do you?" 

"All right, I'll play along. Just now, I came back from the bullpen, where doing paperwork is even more of a chore than before now that I can't pawn it off onto you. Before that I came from forensics, and, this morning, I came from this very apartment, where I can't help but notice that you were a lot more talkative this morning." 

Blair pursed his lips, and Jim noticed, not for the first time, how full and red they were. He shook his head, still silent, and Jim noticed, not for the first time, how the glossy brown tendrils framed his high, wide cheekbones and square, firm jaw covered with what he imagined to be velvety skin, its delicate olive tone set off by the five o'clock shadow that, with Blair,usually manifested by three. 

"Jim," he began, using the studiedly patient tone he had previously employed with his slower students, back when he had had students. "You know that's not what I mean. I mean, where you came from. Your family. Your heritage. Your lineage." 

"Oh, that, well, then, why not just say so, Darwin? Don't know why we're playing Twenty Questions all of a sudden, but, OK, I'll bite. You know my dad's family has been in Cascade for three generations. Before that, the Ellisons were in the upper Midwest, Illinois, Chicago area I believe, and before that, Philadelphia." 

"And before that?" 

"Well, not really sure, but Western Europe somewhere, Great Britain, probably. Wait, don't tell me - you've finally gotten so bored that you're doing amateur individualized anthropology - " and Jim immediately thought better of it and wished he could bite back his words. Anthropology had been Blair's whole world for 14 years, until ... 

But if Blair was offended, he gave no sign. 

"So, you can trace back - what? A hundred years? Two hundred, maybe?" 

"Never really thought about it in terms of numbers or years, but, yeah, I guess so. And your point is what?" 

"That I can't. Not on my father's side at all, of course, since I have no idea who he was. And not more than a handful of decades on my mother's side, either." 

"Well, Naomi had, or has, a twin brother. Who were their parents, your grandparents? Wait, your grandma recently died, just about the same time that - " 

And for the third time in as many minutes, Jim wished that he could stop his mouth from engaging without his brain. They had gotten the news about Gertrud a couple of months ago, right around the time of the dissertation debacle. And, between that, the final takedown of international terrorist Klaus Zeller and helping Simon and Megan recover from being shot by said terrorist; there had simply been neither time nor psychological space to do anything but send condolences by long-distance telephone calls. 

After a moment of silence that was uncomfortable at least on Jim's end, he said, "Well, I'm just going to shut up here and let you tell me whatever's on your mind. Please," he added, and meant it. 

Blair handed Jim a hand-written letter and said, "OK, don't talk, then. Just read. Out loud is fine." 

Comfortable as he usually was at following Blair's good-natured orders, Jim did as he was told. 

"My darling Blair. 

"I miss you so much. I miss the man you are, and, even more, the little boy you used to be. You were so young back then. I was too. The world was younger then, somehow. 

"I know you're used to getting missives from me from much more exotic locales than this one. I wish that this could be one of them. That's yet another thing I miss. And, what I've learned is, no matter how much you miss something, whatever it is just stays ... missing. 

"Do you remember Grandma's house, our old house? You were little then. But, then again, you remember things so well. You always could. I've often thought that this must have been why you went into anthropology. So you could find out how much about people there was to remember, and to help other people do it. 

"But sometimes remembering hurts. It does, and then what do you do? 

"I know what I do. Why do you think I travel so much? But I guess that you can only run so far, and then the past - wasn't it Satchel Paige who said that? - starts gaining on you. Whoops. When did I turn into a philosopher? I really should leave that to you. 

"You've probably guessed by now that I am down here in Elyon, going through things here at the house. So much has changed, and so much hasn't. It's small, and it's big, and, most of all, it's empty. Grandma and I didn't always get along, but I miss her. I never understood her - maybe I just didn't want to - but I miss her. 

"I would much rather be at one of Earth's holy places. But maybe I already am. I guess there's something holy about what I'm doing now. Doing something for someone who can never thank you for it, at least not on this plane of existence. There's something karmically good about that, don't you think? 

"I guess I never thought I would have to do this. Never thought I would have to grow up. But now I'm the oldest left in the family, except for Nathan of course, but then, he's the same age anyway, and he's not here, so that's no help. 

"I never really felt like I could actually be older than anybody, even you, but, then, I think you always knew that. You were so wise even when you were a child. But now I'm 55, and you're 30, and, even though hippies aren't supposed to, I trust you. More than I trust myself. But, then again, I think you've always known that, too. 

"Well, all of the above is just my unique, patented way of rambling as a cover letter to the enclosed. I found it in Grandma's top linen drawer. That's where women usually keep things that are important - anyway, I do - and so I think this just might be. It's obviously old, so please be careful with it. But, wait, I don't have to tell you that, do I? It's your job to know what's old, what's important and how to be careful with them. That much, even I have always known. 

"So, do what you think best with this. Who knows, maybe you'll discover an important secret about the past. Maybe something important, about what makes us all run. 

"Love love love to you and Jim from your loving mother." 

"So, let's see this mystery object," Jim said after a minute of silence had passed after he put down the letter. Blair still hadn't moved, and after a minute of silence, Jim tapped him on his sock-covered foot again, this time the right one, this time massaging it a little, then the other, then both. 

Blair didn't seem to mind, as he seemed to be in a bit of a dream state. After a couple of minutes, he handed a small, tattered, book, no more than six inches by four inches by one inch, bound in black cloth, over to his friend. 

"Even I can tell that it's pretty old, at least 50 years, I would say, or more, and well-used," Jim said after examining it for a moment. "Looks like a journal or a diary or a record book of some kind, but it's not locked or sealed in any way, so we should be able to read it, if you think that would be OK. Have you tried it?" 

"You go ahead then, knock yourself out," was Blair's more-lanconic-than-usual reply. 

Jim flipped through the pages for a few seconds, which is all it took for him to understand why Blair had told him that. 

"Ummm ... Chief? Not to state the obvious, but this doesn't look like English. In fact, it doesn't look like any language I've ever seen. Not to coin a clich, but it's Greek to me." 

"Do I look Greek to you?" 

It seemed an odd question, even coming from Blair, who had been, from the beginning of their relationship three years ago the source of more odd questions than anyone else Jim had ever met. 

Yes, you do, thought Jim, like a Greek god, or, more accurately, like one of those beautiful Greek youths of classical myth, the ones fun-loving, sensuous and seductive enough to make even a straight, conservative, middle-aged man forget his station and himself ... but Jim attempted to dismiss the notion from his mind as soon as it arrived. 

"Um ... no," was all he said aloud. "And, more to the point, Gertrud wasn't, I shouldn't imagine. So this must be something else. Hebrew, maybe?" Jim had heard Hebrew the previous month because Blair had taken him to a Friday night service so that he could say Kaddish - the memorial prayer for the dead - for his grandmother. Jim remembered how odd it seemed that the books were opened backwards and that the writing ran from right to left. 

"If it were, I could read it, just barely. But you're close. It's Yiddish. I can tell because of all the extra alephs and ayins and yuds that - mostly - substitute for the vowels in Hebrew." 

"OK, Einstein, now you really are speaking Greek. Say what?" 

Blair showed him the graceful swirls, which appeared to be written in fountain pen, on one of the pages. "In Hebrew, the vowels would be just little marks under, and sometimes over, the full-sized letters, which are consonants. But Yiddish usually uses the two silent letters aleph and ayin, and sometimes two yuds in a row, to indicate vowels." 

"But..." Jim was starting to remember. "But the Hebrew letters in the books at the synagogue were much more blocky. This isn't the same." 

"Good deduction, detective. This is cursive writing, just like Naomi's letter is in English but in handwriting, not manuscript printing." 

"Oy vey. That makes it even more complicated, doesn't it?" 

Blair smiled at hearing Jim use one of the Jewish expressions he had learned since becoming acquainted with him. "See, you're speaking Yiddish already. 'Oy, vey' literally means, 'oh, pain.' See how good you are?" 

"I guess the real question here is, how good are you? Can you read it, or write it, or speak it yourself?" 

"Not really. I just know a few words and expressions, and mostly just the ones that everyone knows from comedy shows. Grandma Gertrud and Grandpa Axel - well, actually, he was my great-uncle, but he lived there, so it seemed more like he was my grandpa - spoke it a lot, mostly when they didn't want me to know what was going on. I think Naomi understood it but didn't speak it. And I don't even really understand it, unfortunately." 

"So it's going to be a project to find out what's in there. Luckily, you're good at languages. And you do have some free time before the academy starts up. Who knows, maybe Naomi is right, it is some deep mystery that will change our lives." 

"That's why I'm on the Internet, trying to research this." 

"Get anything so far?" 

"Not really." 

"Have you tried translating, say, just the first page?" 

"That's what's odd, here. On what seems to be the title page, it says, 'kaddish fahr aleyn, bei Gitl Sylowitz.' " 

"Kaddish? Wasn't that the prayer we went to the temple to say after we heard about your grandma passing?" Jim didn't have Blair's natural gift for languages, but, as a veteran detective, he was excellent at recalling details. 

"Yes, it is. So it says, a memorial prayer for myself, by Gitl Sylowitz." 

"How can a person say a memorial prayer for herself? Why would she want to? And who is Gitl Sylowitz? Your grandma was Gertrud Sandburg." 

"All true. And all good questions, my dear detective." 

"I'm going to let you do the detective work on this one, my dear soon-to-be official partner. It's my night to cook, so I'm going to leave you to your druthers." 

Jim went off to the kitchen. Blair remained on the couch, thinking to himself and, as usual, speaking softly yet aloud. "Kaddish. Holiness even in the face of death. I wonder." 

* * *

End Inheritance by Mazal HaMidbar: mazalhamidbar@hotmail.com

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